If you want to dig deeper into the myths borrowed by the Old Testament, do please consider checking out Dr Josh's 7 part lecture series using my affiliate link: emmathorne1--pursuit4knowledge.thrivecart.com/ot-myths/ Thank you lovely people!

@Windchanter420

21 күн бұрын

Emma I love you, your bubbly personality and wit bring me much joy.

@Jarod-Thomas

21 күн бұрын

While I always find your topics and interviews interesting and enlightening, I just had to take a moment to comment on your voice. You sound so much like the actress Elizabeth Henstridge, and it is so delightful. I could listen to you just for the sake of listening, and the fact that you always have such incredible information makes it all the better.

@anthonypra8899

21 күн бұрын

When I was young, I liked to watch Nova. I'm talking like 80s and 90s by the way, Those kinds of shows on the public broadcast system back in. the day. and then I would go to church with my mom and they would talk about Genesis. That, wouldn't make any sense. Genesis talks like from the point of view here being the center of everything in existence, to the point of view of a lot of people, the center of the universe, which that's too small too. We're talking about the entirety of the whole void of space. This being called God or whatever, if it exists, which I'm kind of leaning towards. Yes, but you would have to look at everything it's ever said from the point of view. of where it is. The outside of our void and our existence, our time and space. Looking in utilize a spear, a globe, a ball. And think of that as the entire void. And in the center there was a big bang. Genesis That's the way I look at Genesis and then. that is how it makes sense. Adam was made from the dust of the Cosmos. The Garden of Eden is the entirety of the void of space. And if Scientists are right. which II thought of years ago, and I'm glad they actually started thinking this way too. If all black holes Cannib alize each other You would have to think they become one black hole eventually absorbing everything in existence and then. collapsing in itself. becoming another Big Bang. If that's the case, how many cycles did Adam Go through before it got Eve? Yes, he is not a he. She's not a she. They are. It's they're beyond comprehension. They don't need food, water, oxygen. They don't reproduce like we do. They don't need gravity. Time doesn't affect them. Hundreds of trillions of years go by and there's still an existence. Forever goes by. There's still of existence. What we consider forever anyway. Different point of view for this being called God who or what it is. as unknown how long. and how long it's been around is something that is beyond comprehension. It is beyond comprehension. People try to play it down to where they can comprehend it. That would be sacrilegious. to downplay what such a being has done to something that you could comprehend and not realize you're supposed to go forth be fruitful. Multi from the point of view. of this being called God outside the Voiter space looking in We haven't even gotten started yet. And they're saying we've gone far enough They're ready to go back.

@hannybenny7632

21 күн бұрын

Look at the "Gilgamesh Epos" .. ;)

@Enjoyurble

20 күн бұрын

🦧

I have NEVER gotten an apology from an apologist!

@EriktheRed2023

21 күн бұрын

I'm so sorry.

@lidbass

21 күн бұрын

To my surprise, I did get one this very week. He said that he might have been a little bit sarcastic. Which he was, but I didn’t actually mind because I was too. I would have preferred he apologise for misunderstanding my points and moving the goalposts, but you can’t have everything, can you?

@bloodyhatter2692

21 күн бұрын

I did several times. They always say they're sorry I'm going to hell and want to help. 😅

@zach2980

21 күн бұрын

That’s really funny. 😂

@jonc4403

21 күн бұрын

christianity needs REAL apologists. People who go around saying "We're so sorry about christianity, what can we do to make up for it?" And then do things like push for reparations for slavery, work to get religion out of government, organize protests against churches, that sort of thing.

I took a mandatory class on world religions at university and the whole first part of the semester was about this stuff. Completely forgot about it until now, that was such an interesting class.

@DaveLH

21 күн бұрын

And of course fundamentalists desperately don't want people to learn about this, which is why they scream about universities "indoctrinating" everyone. (When in fact they are UNindoctrinating people.)

@mrapistevist

21 күн бұрын

When I was a university senior, I took a two term class on the bible as literature. We examined the bible like another other book. As you say, an interesting class. 😉

@gdutfulkbhh7537

20 күн бұрын

Read one holy book and you might be in a cult for life. Compare several and you're done with religion in an afternoon.

@teleriferchnyfain

20 күн бұрын

You might be done with taking such texts literally

@AnnoyingNewsletters

20 күн бұрын

”I've been involved in a number of cults, both as a leader and a follower. You have more fun as a follower, but you make more money as a leader." -Creed Bratton

My first exposure to this was when my son took a mythology class in high school. I found out that the virgin birth story was an old mythological standby way before the Jesus story. I was already an atheist, but I found this to be eye opening.

@psterud

20 күн бұрын

This is the sort of thing that would drive the fundamentalists up the friggin' wall. They'd go on a rampage talking about how the government is trying to brainwash their kids and turn them all into sexless drones or something. "First they came after our guns, now they're coming after our lord and savior!" Etc., etc. The sad and scary thing is that this is approximately 40% of the country (about a hundred million plus).

@jeffmacdonald9863

20 күн бұрын

My understanding is that "virgin births" specifically aren't really old mythological standbys. Gods having sex with mortal women (often in unusual and mysterious ways) who then give birth to demigods or great heroes is. The Christian twist on that for Jesus likely comes from adopting the basic idea, but adapting it to fit a more transcendent God and the focus on purity in Judaism of the time

@adamk.7177

19 күн бұрын

Crecganford is a great channel for these types of stories. Highly recommend!

@jeffmacdonald9863

19 күн бұрын

@@adamk.7177 I watched a few Crecganford videos, but he seemed very focused on tying everything to the Indo-Europeans, which has the same problem as tying it all to Babylon.

@Ian_Jules

19 күн бұрын

@@jeffmacdonald9863 That's a good point. Bringing in the concept of virginity may muddy the waters. From my understanding, it would probably be most accurate to say that magical or miraculous births are a common motif. Heroes often have some divine origin. The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell is a good starting point.

So refreshing to hear the bible discussed as one ancient text among many, with its own context, intertextuality and intentionality. As a mythographer raised atheist, this is what I hoped "religious education" classes in school would be. I never understood the exceptionalism related to the Abrahamic texts, nor the arbitrary distinctions made between miracles and magic, prayer and spells etc. I also love to hear ancient texts and myths discussed in a post-structuralist context - the differences matter!

@soulanstreets222

19 күн бұрын

The exceptionalism is that people chose to believe it. That’s it…that’s all. Actual believer’s who are not delusional do not make claims of knowing for a fact that what they’re reading are facts….they believe they are and they are comfortable with that faith.

@skepticsinister

19 күн бұрын

⁠@@soulanstreets222actual believers that are not delusional seems like an oxymoron, if you believe that which is false, isn’t that delusional?

@soulanstreets222

19 күн бұрын

@@skepticsinister It’s only a delusion if it is actually proven to be false and we already know that the existence of God cannot be proven or disproven. It’s faith or disbelief.

@plus9775

18 күн бұрын

​@@soulanstreets222considering proving a negative is impossible, I'm just going to assume that this is the delusion you're discussing in action

@elliottpaine9259

18 күн бұрын

....when you said: The arbitrary distinctions made between miracles and magic, prayer and spells..... Is that how you view it? That is an interesting take for me, that it could all be chalked up to magic, not miracles. Only curious, and I'm not coming from a religious angle fyi.

Emma, I very much admire the fact that you took a moment to recognise the brilliance that is the Doctor’s tie. May I say your butterfly blouse is likewise noteworthy! I appreciate appreciation in the community!

@cuzned1375

21 күн бұрын

Dr Josh’s commitment to the bowtie is admirable, and they suit him perfectly. I think his equally-estimable wife Megan has as many different styles of eyeglasses as Josh has of bowties…

@PedanticRaver

21 күн бұрын

@@cuzned1375 "estimable" thank you for my new word today :)

@rdklkje13

20 күн бұрын

Have you seen his wife Megan Lewis? Her glasses and hair dyes are amazing. She does a weekly podcast with Bart Ehrman, here on YT.

@motherofcatsnz

19 күн бұрын

@@cuzned1375 Oh, Wow, I am glad to know that Megan has a husband as stylish as her. What a wonderful Couple.

@DawnDavidson

19 күн бұрын

Agreed! I noticed that butterfly blouse right away. A perfect blouse for YT. Bright and attractive and all concentrated up high enough to be seen on a YT screen. Brilliant!

My absolute favorite meme is a single panel, and it says (paraphrasing because I don’t remember the exact wording since I haven’t seen it in a while), “Telling someone that they have to live their lives based on your beliefs, is like telling someone that they can’t eat a donut because you’re on a diet.” I keep trying to find the image again, but I can’t find the exact one, and I’m not very good with computers, so I can’t recreate it myself.

@caribbeanman3379

20 күн бұрын

I see what you did there ... subtly throwing shade at vegans on the sly.

@stufour

16 күн бұрын

@@caribbeanman3379only if you think taking on a food regime to lose weight and making an ethical stance are synonymous…..

@caribbeanman3379

16 күн бұрын

@@stufour Only if you don't know what subtly means.

@NiceGoat

15 күн бұрын

​@@caribbeanman3379that's a false analogy what you did there

@Gailbraithe

3 күн бұрын

@@stufour Taking on a food regime to lose weight is being used as an analogy for Christian ethics by OP, but you object to a food regime to lose weight being used as an analogy for veganism? If the analogy doesn't work for veganism, it definitely doesn't work for Christianity.

I love hearing Dr Bowens list of areas of study because it sounds like you're introducing a Stargate character

I was NOT expecting Dr Josh to say someone was sponge worthy. The bowtie makes him seem like a nice boy.

@Pete-Almighty

4 күн бұрын

This was a more relaxed conversation than his usual interviews with people like Bart Ehrman and Alex o' Connor. He seems like a really knowledgeable and fun person.

"Make them make sense!" I can say, as an American who was raised Mormon, this is absolute heresy. Heresy! Once I sort out what the Bible says, exactly, about that then I'll do... something! Something!

@erin6784

20 күн бұрын

Absolute madness, isn't it?

@shelliegilbertson9828

20 күн бұрын

😂

@thehellyousay

20 күн бұрын

my advice for you, once you you've sorted out what the bible is all about, would be to keep it in the bathroom against the next pandemic run on toilet paper, but i'm certain that option will suggest itself to you before you're finished anyway.

@mcpudd1540

19 күн бұрын

@@thehellyousayna, you keep it near the stash for emergency rolling paper. Nothing hits like a Jesus Joint

@thehellyousay

18 күн бұрын

@@mcpudd1540 pocket bibles, maybe. i was in prison a long time ago, and yes, they can be used to roll a smoke in a pinch, but a proper family sized bible beside the johnson can see you through those pandemic-related shit ticket shortages like no other publication can ...

Wow! I discovered this on my own the very hard way as a Syrian Teenager 15 years ago! ... The proverbs used 5,000 years old or more, are still used into modern day colloquial Syrian Arabic. The same examples and proverbs, and same exact metaphors.

@sarahr8311

20 күн бұрын

Could you give us a few fun selections, if they translate into English?

Greetings from Germany. Two of the English speaking persons I most enjoy listen to have a conversation. This day couldn't get any better.

We need to see Dr. Josh do his Kent Hovind impression.

@ArKritz84

16 күн бұрын

It's the best thing anyone has ever done with their pants on.

This is a fun way to find out Eminem sampled a Joan Jett song

@denisep9497

21 күн бұрын

You just read my mind!

@thehellyousay

21 күн бұрын

plot twist. it ain't a joan jett song. she only covered it.

@numericalcode

21 күн бұрын

@@thehellyousayCool info! It actually helps his point even more!

@idnwiw

21 күн бұрын

True, that much of the Genesis stories are based on the gilgamesh epos was already tought to me in catholic class, but they kept the Eminem - Joan Jett knowledge from us

@valolafson6035

20 күн бұрын

Surprise!

Nice. Woke up, sat down, BOOM, new Emma. Perfect.

This interview works as a gentle primer to comparative mythology and textual analysis. As a former English major, it's oddly exciting to hear someone use the term "intertextuality" on youtube. Since most people aren't English or literature majors, I'm glad there are resources like this. Also, the timing is fortuitous in that I recently read both Gilgamesh and the Descent of Inanna for the first time. These texts may sound daunting but Gilgamesh, despite being known as an "epic", is not even particularly long. The trickiest part is choosing which translation to use--well, that and the fact that there are little gaps in the story since clay tablets tend to be recovered in fragments.

@WS-dd8ow

16 күн бұрын

Which translations do you recommend? I’ve had the Benjamin Foster one on my list, but don’t recall how I landed on that one.

@Ian_Jules

16 күн бұрын

@@WS-dd8ow I'm not remotely an expert on the language, so I can't vouch for accuracy. Foster's is the Norton Critical Edition, and Nortons are a go-to for literary scholars--good but dense. I'd read a few samples on online. Check publishing dates---newer ones will (hopefully) have benefited from recent scholarship. If you look up the translator, you should be able to find their background.

I’m an analogy person, so I love Dr. Josh’s use of analogies.

@thehellyousay

18 күн бұрын

so, you're ... analogous, are you ...?

Irving Finkel's "The Ark before Noah" is an interesting read covering the way the flood myths evolved through the different cultures, taken from all of those Cuneiform tablets that they left scattered all around Mesopotamia.

@thehellyousay

21 күн бұрын

there's evidence that a glacial dam burst several thousand years ago and catastrophically flooded the mesopotamian basin. such sudden floods were fairly common as the glaciers "retreated" (an interesting euphemism for melted, eh?) 10,000-20,000 years ago

@mnomadvfx

18 күн бұрын

@@thehellyousay Doesn't need to be nearly that far back. The Euphrates and Tigris are (or were) beeeg civilisation growing and sustaining rivers, like the Nile in Africa, the Danube in Europe, the Yangtze in China or the Sindhu (indus) in India. Any major river flood during a time of low to none existent literacy could result in a lasting multi generational story that becomes more and more embellished with each passing. This is proven to occur with oral traditions. Memories are imperfect, storytellers embellish for dramatic emphasis. Within a dozen generations you have gone from "it wiped out a few riverside villages" to "the gods sought to end us, almost all of mankind and the animals were lost in that great flood".

@thehellyousay

18 күн бұрын

@@mnomadvfx the ruins of the city believed to have been jericho was once estimated at 10,000 years old. geological evidence show such sudden catastrophic flooding from glacial dams giving way, was still occurring as the glaciers melted back towards the poles. all i'm pointing out is the evidence. i'm not speculating on the cultural effects.

@Giles29

16 күн бұрын

I think Genesis borrows most extensively from Atrahasis and Utnapishtim, if I recall correctly. Enuma Elish was the big influence on the primal narratives.

@kellydalstok8900

15 күн бұрын

@@thehellyousayno, that didn’t happen in Mesopotamia, that happened in North America.

Using the Bible as a guide to understanding how the world works is ridiculous 😂

@bignoob1790

20 күн бұрын

@@GuyFawkes-gpp There's some nuggets of wisdom in there, for those with eyes to see

@dbaargosy4062

20 күн бұрын

it works for explaining every day, but i have a once dead already and sent back under protest behind me.

@GuyFawkes-gpp

20 күн бұрын

@@bignoob1790 yeah, some but not many

@bignoob1790

20 күн бұрын

@@GuyFawkes-gpp Some that even most Christians don't see Why is it called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?

@GuyFawkes-gpp

20 күн бұрын

@@bignoob1790 there's no such thing as good and evil. Just one side vs another

I had a Priest from my Catholic church once tell me that most Old Testament stories are nothing but that, just stories, and they are meant to teach us and not to be taken literally and I completely agree.

@Jeremiah59

21 күн бұрын

That is bad catechesis. The bible is a complex book, that is too simplistic.

@fortunamajor580

20 күн бұрын

@@Jeremiah59complex how? It’s just a bunch of repackaged pagan myths.

@jorgealbertohernandezgutie7696

20 күн бұрын

​@@Jeremiah59 nah they've always been "just stories", meant to teach morals that correspond with its age and also give a sense of national pride and a half-true "history of our people" to both the jewish tribes that made Israel and the early christians

@samwightman1

20 күн бұрын

I'd recommend having a browse of "how to read the bible for all its worth"

@raydunn8262

20 күн бұрын

Catholicism doesn't stress that one needs to read the Bible. The hierarchy emphasizes the NT much more. In Mass, the first reading is never about a sadistic God. 1. The NT was started centuries after the OT. During that gap, God created something like Prosac for himself. God went from sadistic to being very compassionate. 2. Revelation, the last book of the NT is not referred to much, either. Cult faiths like Evangelism and Mormons use the OT and Revelation to scare the Hell out of their followers to keep them in line. 3. I went to 12 years of Catholic schools with one Religion class daily. I won the Religion award at HS graduation, in my 64 years, I never cracked open a Bible. 4. Maybe when the one year of Religion class, the Bible was treated like a history book. 5. The following year was devoted to all other World religions. The teacher stressed that we needed to be objective.

As someone that is a treasure trove of pop culture references, I appreciate so much his references to put things into perspective.

@manifold1476

18 күн бұрын

A person isn't a "THAT" ----- A person is a "Who" (or "Whom" - depending upon the verb/adverb context.)

@HankChinaski27

17 күн бұрын

@@manifold1476 lol Thanks. I remember being a grammar Nazi too...when I was 20. At 46 I tend to avoid getting my panties in a bunch.

@kingjayXIII

14 күн бұрын

yea lol my ears perked up for the "That 70's Show" reference that he threw in there haha

When I found put how many mythological figures died, rose 3 days later, then ascended into heaven. I was stunned to see that the bible version was basically crappy fan fiction

@LuismaLorca

10 күн бұрын

I think you should learn about Christianism other than through the lense of modern american evangelical fundamentalism. For example we have Popes that have literally written books on those other figures that had similar archetypes to the story of Christ... Its not some sort of arcane knowledge.

I've wasted a whole decade not learning Sumerian.

Regarding Ban'na as 'built' in Hebrew, in Farsi a Ban'na is a noun for a builder, often specifically a bricklayer. It's a term still used to this day

What an absolute delight. I am definitely eye-balling that course. Being a comic book nerd going way back, I have long come to regard ancient religious texts and their antecedents like Superhero comics. Two thousand years from now, (presumably human) archeologists might uncover my comic collection and believe Batman was a real person, otherwise why would there be SO many published works of his capers, not to mention telling and retelling Bruce Wayne's origin story with very little variation. What if Yahweh is simply the Punisher, Moses is Moon Knight and Jesus is Dr. Strange?

I thought the butterfly blouse was a huge bowtie on a regular white blouse at first. I love it!

@sharkythesharkdogg

17 күн бұрын

Fantastic blouse.

I love this conversation, and your butterfly blouse. I thought the thumb nail (when i blur scrolled first thing in the morning ) was Bill Nye talking to some adorable little cowboy.

@cuzned1375

21 күн бұрын

Silly little guy / adorable little cowboy. Tomato / tomahto. 😋

@EmmaThorneVideos

20 күн бұрын

Amazing comparisons all round

Ancient cultures borrowing and building on older myths is something that I can believe

@gdutfulkbhh7537

20 күн бұрын

Irving Finkel did a very amusing talk about how a clay tablet in the British Museum from Babylon tells the whole Noah's Ark story, predating the Old Testament. Well worth a watch.

@AlbertaGeek

20 күн бұрын

@@gdutfulkbhh7537 Finkel is the best!

@Ian_Jules

19 күн бұрын

People share stories. Copyright and intellectual property are relatively recent inventions, historically speaking. Plus in ancient times, there was a lot of migrating and conquering, both of which can be causes of cultural exchange.

@emilywyatt9340

19 күн бұрын

There is a difference between borrowing, sharing and blatant plagiarism. Christianity denies the pagan origins of these stories and presents them as it's own original ideas.

@mnomadvfx

18 күн бұрын

@@emilywyatt9340 Yeah the tones of Zoroastrian Ahriman are extremely audible in Christian Satan - couldn't be clearer once you have a good grasp on both.

Since I first encountered Digital Hammurabi a couple years ago, I have been fascinated by the depth of knowledge Josh and Meagan are willing to share with those seeking better explanations. I enjoyed every minute of this discussion. It always occurs to me when considering how basic story themes seem to reappear in the foundational myths of successive generations, that in the ancient world there was no standard set of historical and/or scientific facts (?) that had been recorded in libraries that were accessible to the general populace. The only narratives they had to piece together what may have happened in the eras that preceded theirs were the myths about gods. epic heroes, devastating natural disasters etc. that had been handed down orally or by early script. Today we have a historical, an archaeological and a geological timeline from which to draw understandings of the ancient world. In the days of Umma and Lagash the people who wrote down what would become the "history" of their lineage had no Encyclopedia Britanica to consult. The literate elite of the Israelites who were held captive in Mesopotamia had access to a rich tradition of origin myths and legends. Aside from the Canaanite myths from their homeland, this was what they had to work with.

Great conversation! And it's always a treat to hear Dr. Bowen. Thanks for inviting him. 13:00 re. a "shared flood" - Something that gets overlooked here is that there is simply no physical evidence that such a flood ever occurred, and if one had occurred, the evidence would have been plentiful. We don't need to make historical/literary arguments against a "shared memory". We _know_ it didn't happen because of the hard physical evidence against it. Sometimes people who work in the historical/literary/philosophical fields tend to lose sight of the fundamental importance of the archeological record.

@DavidSmith-vr1nb

21 күн бұрын

Plenty of widespread regional floods, which might have seemed like "the whole world" to people unaccustomed to frequent travel.

@fepeerreview3150

20 күн бұрын

@@DavidSmith-vr1nb Yes, that's true. Which is probably why floods appear in the myths of cultures all over the world. These are not a shared memory of one worldwide flood but rather separate memories of separate floods. And the physical evidence supports the multiple floods idea, which was my primary point. When we're discussing these stories we need to keep in mind that there is _physical evidence_ that needs to be considered as well, and that is often more definitive as evidence.

@sarahr8311

20 күн бұрын

I think that at 13:13 when he mentions "sooo many problems with this idea" he's partly referring to the lack of archeological evidence. But he's sticking to his literary stuff, because that's what he's here to talk about.

@thehellyousay

20 күн бұрын

a glacial lake bursting through a glacier dam hundreds of miles to the north would still wipe out whole ancient cities in the mesopotamian plains in a sudden wall of water, and lo and behold! there is evidence that exactly that happened more than once in the region, let alone around the world. go figure.

@mnomadvfx

18 күн бұрын

Also the fact that rivers and coastlines are surprise surprise pretty common sights for human habitation across history. Tsunami and river flood events are so plentiful that I have witnessed several on the news in the less than 40 years I have been alive. One of them was literally in my home country - the event was so traumatising and damaging to $billions in property that they referred to it as BIBLICAL on the news, despite the water never rising above the first story of most buildings. So it can easily be imagined how the ancients would have embellished such stories when retelling them in antiquity.

Oh yeah. An entry essay for my Theology Degree was 'The Flood Epic in Religion'. It was a lot of fun!

The analogy of the oncoming train is one of the best, if not the best, description of the evangelical mindset Thank you.

@jursamaj

20 күн бұрын

Too bad they have no evidence that there are tracks, let alone an oncoming train…

@thehellyousay

20 күн бұрын

@@jursamaj i'd love it if god were real. think of the faces of all these christians when they find out they didn't make the cut ...

@finestPlugins

20 күн бұрын

​@@thehellyousay My hypothesis is that God is real and the rapture happened already. None of the Christians now are thus real Christians. 😉

@LukeAllen-sb4mx

19 күн бұрын

I 👍💯

@pensivelyrebelling

19 күн бұрын

Yes! As a former evangelical, that was the best description of it. I remember feeling that anxiety in talking to people. It was so nice to deconstruct and not feel that anymore.

My catholic highschool, freshman year, had a required course in the Old Testament and it was the first time a religion teacher had ever said directly that the creation myth and a lot of the old testament was entirely made up. We spent a lot of time reading the creation myths from other religions and cultures and comparing them to the one in the Old Testament.

god floods the world: "LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME DO TO YOU!" 🤔

@bignoob1790

20 күн бұрын

@@thehellyousay (Chad Face) Yes

@Jeremiah59

20 күн бұрын

It was the fallen angels, not humanity. The material reason was the genetic corruption. only noah was "perfect in his generatiions", Genesis 6.

@nmappraiser9926

20 күн бұрын

@@Jeremiah59 What story was that sampled from?

@thehellyousay

18 күн бұрын

@@Jeremiah59 the irony of your existence, let alone your commentary on this thread, is so thick i'm almost certain your thought processes have rusted shut.

@volpeverde6441

18 күн бұрын

​@thehellyousay no one believes this crap anymore.... God has failed....the bible is a LIE.... GOD IS LOVE.... 1 John 4.7-21 LOVE IS NOT JEALOUS..... 1 Corinthians 13.4-7 I AM A JEALOUS GOD....exodus 20.5 CONTRADICTORY NONSENSE....

Bible literalists are like Constitution originalist: The text clearly states what they want it to say. And the are using their holy text as a shield against criticism.

@markgallemore8856

21 күн бұрын

No that’s not true. The Bible is scrap book in the sense that it’s a collection of literature, some of which has been stitched together, research documentary hypothesis for the creation of the Pentateuch. Other examples are in the book of Job, not a creative work by a single author at a single point in time. The book of Daniel goes from Hebrew into large chunks of Aramaic. Scholars say you have Isaiah one Isaiah two, Isaiah three and Isaiah four. As well as the books and letters in the so-called New Testament part of the Bible, several different copyists didn’t like the way the author of the gospel we now know, as the gospel of mark ended, so different authors in different places, added different endings as many as four. In contrast the United States Constitution was preceded by the articles of confederation and was created to form a more perfect union. We know who wrote it. We know why they wrote it we know it’s purpose. The US Constitution doesn’t come from God. It comes from the minds of men. Those men wanted stability so they made a system that wasn’t set in stone. There is a process of adding as well as removing. The words contain in the text. They didn’t want to make it easy, they wanted it to be difficult for stability reasons. They wanted good well thought out additions and not just a simple majority. To add or subtract from this, you have to get both houses of Congress 2/3 of each a president. To sign it. And then 2/3 of the states have to ratify it. So in conclusion contract law, what did the contract mean when it was entered into. That’s what judges ask when two parties are complaining that somebody didn’t honor the agreement in a contract. The US Constitution is a contract between a fictitious entity called government. It exists at the consent of the governed/the people. It’s hard. It’s supposed to be hard. You can participate convince others of your improvement ideas. Two things first governments and states have powers, people have rights. The US Constitution doesn’t give anybody anything,you have it because you exist and you’re rights pre exist the United States founding documents. The bill of rights is a restriction on government power it codifies some of the many pre-existing rights retained by the People.

@Jeremiah59

21 күн бұрын

@@joachimschoder there is Catholic tradition. The early church fathers. A lot of answers are found in the early church fathers, st Paul, peter and john epistles.

@thehellyousay

20 күн бұрын

it is more correctly known as The Shield Of Ignorance. it's a +10 on argument defense, but a -5 on charisma, intellect, and agility.

@Jeremiah59

20 күн бұрын

@@thehellyousay a wise man knows that he does not know. God is real, atheist place too much value on something that's only been around for a 100 years

@asagoldsmith3328

20 күн бұрын

​@@Jeremiah59demonstrate a single claim you have made. Show how a single element of Catholic tradition is evidence for God.

Regarding _"all goes back to the tower of Babel"_ - including the Inca, the Aztecs, the Polynesians, the Japanese and the original inhabitants of Australia??? 😂

@EinsteinsHair

19 күн бұрын

They might argue that even science says that early modern humans came out of Africa, went through the Middle East, and spread to all the places you list. I'm sure they would say it was 5000 years ago, not 50,000. And that people went into Africa from the Middle East, not the other way around.

@Gailbraithe

3 күн бұрын

@@EinsteinsHair The Tower of Babel story is about men who try to elevate themselves to the position of God, but collapse because God makes it impossible for them to communicate. What's being described here is what brings down every hierarchy: The SNAFU Factor. The SNAFU Factor, originating from the military acronym "Situation Normal, All Fouled Up" (or a more colorful variation), describes a state where systemic issues and miscommunications are so entrenched in an organization that they become the norm, leading to constant inefficiencies and problems. It highlights how bureaucratic inertia and the normalization of dysfunction can cause routine operations to be persistently chaotic and error-prone, despite appearing normal to those within the system. The reason the SNAFU Factor always rises up in hierarchies is because honest communication is only possible between equals. When subordinates will be punished for delivering bad news, they tend to deliver good news. The more layers of hierarchy (the higher the Tower), the more obfuscated any problematic issues become as information rises through the hierarchy. The end result is that the head of the hierarchy is making decisions based on bad information, which results in bad decisions, which results in the Tower collapsing.

I love when we get amazing guests on channels like this one

I'm an atheist and was raised by atheists, but this is the kind of thing that I'm really interested in when it comes to religion. I liked studying this kind of history, culture and mythology around religion when I was in university.

@dewaldt8104

15 күн бұрын

You should watch the channel redeemed zoomer

@allenludwigbryant9350

15 күн бұрын

Read Ayn Rand.

@EBDavis111

12 күн бұрын

@@dewaldt8104 He said he was interested in studying history, culture, and mythology. Not crazy youtube neo-nazis.

Dr Josh and Emma. I cannot ask for more !

When I was a kid and my mum was a devout Catholic, one of the many pamphlets she had accumulated was called "Spirit of Truth/Spirit of Error". In it was a short list of various religions and other Christian denominations, with reasons why they were wrong (citing specific differences to Catholic beliefs). At the time - mostly because I was a kid born into Catholicism - this viewpoint seemed completely reasonable; we're right and everyone else is wrong. I'm glad to say that, when I became a man, I put away childish things.

Do MORE of this Emma. I wish my brain worked as well as both of you!! BUT, I totally believe in what was said here.

41:50 The "eye opening experience" Dr. Bowen gave those evangelical Christians would have, at certain times in the past, gotten him burnt at the stake. This is why this stuff matters.

the parallels from most of the bible and the actually history of mesopotamia to the genocide today in palestine is just - it’s horrifying that thousands of years have past and humans are still doing the same horrific shit in the name of a God that they claim loves everyone.

@bignoob1790

20 күн бұрын

@@picklejuice2 Guilt and fear are deadly

@thehellyousay

20 күн бұрын

love hurts ...

@bignoob1790

20 күн бұрын

@thehellyousay Love is patient, love is kind,

@njhoepner

20 күн бұрын

One of the main purposes of religion is to make clear the list of those one is supposed to hate.

@bignoob1790

20 күн бұрын

@@njhoepner I don't hate anyone and I'm a Christian

The whole web of what Hebrew mythology evolved from (including the pillager origins of Yahweh) and where they stole various story elements from is always an intriguing rabbit hole to go down.

@thehellyousay

21 күн бұрын

way to mix your metaphors. to clarify, i stand in admiration. well done, that ...

An *EXCELLENT* vid Emmush. ❤️👍🏻 As for the flood - it *obviously* preserves the old memories from the trauma of the end of the Ice Age, approximately 11,500 years ago. Having been passed only orally for hundreds of generations, it was _eventually_ written in Mesopotamia and, of course, adapted later to other cultures... And - well, I am not familiar with the examples he gave for cultural borrowing, however, some of the Greatest Creations of our times, are those based upon earlier versions - many TNG Episodes, as well as "Charmed", "Sliders", "The Orville" and "Andromeda", are based on TOS Episodes, or - lots of times - on the very root of things: the Original "Twilight Zone" Episodes, and, of course, no one would dream calling that _"stealing"..._ on the contrary - _"If The Stars Should Appear",_ for example, is an *obvious* homage to _"For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky". "I Dream of Phoebe",_ for example, or _"This Slide of Paradise",_ even use their names to make the Historical connection clear. 🌞 And a large part of the Fun is identifying these Historical connotations and connections. And, talking "Trek" stuff - I really Hope to see lots more of *Laura Reed?* 😍😍

@sarahr8311

20 күн бұрын

Right? Cultural borrowing is great when you get the references. It serves as shorthand to tell us about events, characters, etc.

The Umma story made me think of the way Putin is gaslighting the Russians, and the world, as to why he had to invade Ukraine. “They are wicked, I had no choice but to invade them.”

@TristanMorrow

21 күн бұрын

Agree -- core doctrine of *_Russkiy-mir_* which is itself part of the *_Holy Rus'_* dogma of Putin's quasi-Christian entity, the Russian Orthodox Church.

@ComradeBeer

20 күн бұрын

You do know that the Ukrainian Nazis were committing an ethnic cleansing in the Don Bass the Don ask and Crimea

@ComradeBeer

20 күн бұрын

You probably think NATO is a defensive organization

@SonsOfLorgar

20 күн бұрын

​@@ComradeBeer you know that's a factual lie and that the only ones deliberately murdering civilians in Donbas was Girkins "little green med" of unmarked Muskovite troops that led the 2013/2014 first stage of the Muskovite invasion. He said it himself at the public ceremony wher Putin gave him a medal for his warcrimes!

@pswakopf

20 күн бұрын

@@ComradeBeer I must have missed all of those news stories about NATO invading other countries unprovoked and killing thousands of people just to restore the territory of their beloved motherland.

I read Gilgamesh when I was in college and was surprised to see that there was another great flood story. By that time I had already deconverted but it was still interesting to see that the Bible isn't the only text that tells a story of a great flood.

great conversation Emma, thx

Love Dr. Josh & Emma!!!!❤

31:17 - and it’s not even that one person’s interpretation most of the time; it’s their interpretation of what someone else’s interpretation of what another person decided was yet another person’s interpretation is. (And that before we factor in translations, editing, etc into this chain).

I recall a philosophy class in early college where we touched on the similarities to Jesus and other religious figures. At the time I had already considered myself non religious, but those kinds of studies very quickly made any belief in christianity plummet.

Having both Josh and Emma in the same video is an unexpected but welcome convergence of my KZread viewing habits.

What a lovely discussion, Dr Bowen is a treat ☺

'Goddamnit Connla..' perfect ending for this video..

As a child who believed in Jesus I was very upset with the flood story. If people were evil; why kill all the animals? Why kill all the trees? Why kill babies?

@SonsOfLorgar

20 күн бұрын

Because crime syndicates need to make gruesome examples to entrap their victims in their protection money extortion fraud

@BassMetal88

19 күн бұрын

But of course. The Noah story is from a Mesopotamian legend. Instead of god warning a man to build a boat it was these supernatural beings that felt they needed to save mankind and went against gods wishes from starting over. More detail in the 1st book of Enoch.

@jordanmapfumo9359

19 күн бұрын

​@SonsOfLorgar very well said. For a small fee of 10% you can get protection

@niqhtt

19 күн бұрын

​@@jordanmapfumo9359The God Mafia

@freddiereadie30

19 күн бұрын

The 10 plagues of Egypt made no sense either. The Egyptian people were punished by God and suffered horrendously just because the Pharaoh was stubborn, and his heart was hardened that he wouldn't set the Israelites free. And yet we read in Exodus 7:3 that it was God himself who deliberately hardened the Pharaoh's heart and made him stubborn. So the Pharaoh was just a puppet who had no free will as the whole catastrophe unfolded in Egypt. The story is absurd and afflicted with a serious plot hole.

Rainbow Baphy and I are loving this video! I LOVE his books, too!

Thank you, thank you. I find that the older I get, the shorter my attention span gets. This was perfect.

There is an individual at my work that I have conversations/debates about different items in the Bible. One item they will NEVER drop is that they say all rules we have today about not killing/harming others and how we should treat others is from the Bible. They make it out to be that no one would have ever figured that it's wrong to harm others if it wasn't in the commandments first....WoW.

@Shadowband

20 күн бұрын

They conveniently omit the misogyny, ownership, and retribution aspects of many "commandment."

@shanegooding4839

16 күн бұрын

I guess they're not interested in all the killing and r*ping God commands in the Bible then.

@lazykbys

11 күн бұрын

Exodus 32:27-29, in which Moses ignores the bit about not killing because a bunch of people decided to worship a golden calf.

It's awesome you're posting more often. You're my favorite commentary to watch on the tube. Keep up the awesome stuff!

The old Sumerian + Babylonian legends weren't STOLEN; their copyrights had expired + they'd entered the public domain by the time the Old Testament was written + they were up for grabs. Too bad Ye Odysseys of Steamboat Willie never made it into the Bible.

@thehellyousay

18 күн бұрын

*ahem* that would the noah rewrite. producers always get the final word ...

Great show. I love dr josh Bowen ! He has KZread lessons on how to read Sumerian!

Loved this interview. :-) I was brought up in a Unitarian Church in the North of England in the mid-60s, where the minister was a woman with a degree in ecology, and the first thing we did at Sunday School was readings from a book called (I think) Beginnings, which had a chapter on each of a great number of creation myths from the world's religions. It was a very small Sunday School, and I remember a couple of "Nativity Plays", in one of which I played Joseph, whose wife was giving birth in someone's garage because we were refugees, and another in which I played the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten, who was apparently the first known person to set up a religion to a monotheistic god. It never made me believe in any sort of god, but did leave me with a great fascination with comparative religion. Also, being nice to other people, no matter who they were, was pretty central...

Loved this convo. Thanks, Emma 😊

Josh Bowen is an excellent scholar. Thanks Emma!

Really appreciated this interview. Highly recommended his books

thank you so much for hosting this discussion... i haven't heard this sort of dialogue for decades

This was a great intro do the subject! It's what we learned in late antiquity classes at the university. It was fascinating. I'm so glad people are showing interest in these themes. What I don't understand is the apologetics.

You made my Saturday! I've been looking for more... diplomatic ways to make this point.

I like the term "borrowed" more than "stolen", but it's still not great - these traditions were no less native to the authors of the Bible than they were to ancient Mesopotamians.

And he does a pretty good impression of kent hovind.

thank you Emma for bringing such a fascinating guest on board!

its fan fiction. Not borrowed, but fan fiction. they took a story, changed it to their needs but it all FICTION always was.

i love love love your interview videos like these. i hardly have the means to dedicate to the full courses and books, usually, but these are so informative and point me right towards resources if i want them. thank you!

Omg I had been looking for a good resource covering this because I can’t find where I first read up on this topic, and up pops this video! THANK YOU!

Death and resurrection stories are obviously allegory/personification of solar and seasonal cycles. Besides, anyone with an ounce of sense would realize that if gods existed, they could communicate with better methods than old books and riddles.

Holy shit i can't believe i wasn't subscribed to emma, I've been watching her stuff for months!

Great flood: let's not forget that the end of glacial era led to a worldwide raise of sea level (separating England from the continent, among other effects).Humans were present during that period of changes. It seems possible that the memory of the sea rise led to the myth of a single flood: a simplification of history easier to memorize and understand, when the actual cause of the sea rise could not be understood. Another aspect is also that what we call myths today was held as historical facrs then. So the Bible was explaining the accepted history into a new light, more conform to the Jewish faith. An historian writing a book on, say, ww2, has not necessarily plagiarized previous books on the same topic. There are reasons to doubt a single and sudden flood, and to highlights the Bible as part of a much more ancient tradition, rather that a litteral record of truth.

great conversation, thank you!

Think about this, please. In addition to many species which are housed in the Farlow Herbarium, located at the Harvard University Herbaria, Wolfe spent months tracking rare species in far-flung locations like London and Hawaii. After extracting DNA from the samples, Wolfe used the genetic codes of four different genes to determine how the various species are related to one another. He then used a process called ancestral state reconstruction to show that the mushrooms have switched from being decomposers to being symbiotic with trees only once in their evolutionary history. Once the mushrooms switched to this new symbiotic lifestyle, they didn't go back to their free-living past. Ultimately, Pringle said, the paper highlights one reason she finds such symbiotic partnerships "intrinsically interesting" -- for all their apparent benefits, the cost can be high. "I think the really interesting thing is this idea that once you become symbiotic, some of your machinery is lost," she said. "It seems like a dead end in some ways -- you have to make this change to enter this niche, but once you're there, you can't go back -- you've lost the capacity to be free-living." Arguably the most widely-recognized group of mushrooms in the world, Amanita mushrooms have appeared in popular culture ranging from Fantasia to the Super Mario Brothers video games. Though it includes a number of edible species, such as the Amanita caesarea, the group is probably best known for its many toxic species, including the death-cap mushroom. Armed with their family tree, Pringle and Wolfe were able to determine that Amanita evolution has largely been away from species that help decompose organic material and toward those that live symbiotically on trees and their roots. More interestingly, they found that the transition came at a steep price -- the loss of the genes associated with breaking down cellulose. "There had been earlier suggestions that this type of gene loss might be taking place, but our study is the first precise test of that hypothesis," Pringle said. "The idea makes sense -- if you're going to actively form a cooperative relationship with a tree, you probably shouldn't simultaneously be trying to break it apart and eat it. But it's a very tricky dance to form these kinds of tight, cooperative interactions, and I think this work shows there is a cost associated with that. You have to change, you have to commit, and it can become a sort of gilded cage -- these mushrooms are very successful, but they're stuck where they are." Harvard researchers are unlocking the evolutionary secrets of one of the world's most recognizable groups of mushrooms, and to do it, they're using one of the most comprehensive fungal "family trees" ever created. As reported in paper published July 18 in PLoS ONE, Associate Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology Anne Pringle and Ben Wolfe, a Post-Doctoral Fellow in FAS Center for Systems Biology, studied the genetics of more 100 species of Amanita mushrooms -- about one-sixth of the genus' total diversity -- to create an elaborate phylogeny showing how each species is related to one another. New research finds that Amanita mushrooms' evolution has largely been away from species that help decompose organic material and toward those that live symbiotically on trees and their roots. More interestingly, scientists found that the transition came at a steep price -- the loss of the genes associated with breaking down cellulose.

Dr. Josh knows what's up. Bowties are cool.

"Babe, wake up, Emma Thorne just posted" - is something I might say in a relationship.

The point is that the Judean scribes (presumably during the exile) saw the Babylonian myths and accepted them as a description of 'the beginning' and deliberately edited/reinterpreted them to fit their tribe's view of theology.

Josh is great, isn't he? I have seen him quite a bit in the last decade. He's a very well respected scholar and author. He really knows his shit, and never shows bias to emotions or presuppositions... He doesn't only know how to read and write at least one (I think more than one though) ancient languages, but also understands their relations to adjacent languages, and how they developed and merged and also grew apart, which involves geology and all sorts too, as well as how words were and were not used for the sheer vast amount of literature he has studied, and so can spot a bad or nefarious translation with ease, and many an apologist has been caught by him using interpretations that are way off, but serve their agenda. Those exist in the bible too, when scribes used words that fit one of two definitions of a word in another language, but used the wrong one of the two definitions and similar, and with each translation to another language or other version via some interpreter, all with their own personal belief based agenda and lack of understanding the language in enough detail, and now you got many different versions of the bible, some with quite large differences, all proclaiming to be, and believed to be true! It doesn't work like that! Nothing works like that!! The apologist rarely if ever cares what's true, but only about that which serves their agenda: LYING FOR GOD!!

It is never too late to learn things

Enjoyed this interview very much. ☺

I always had trouble with the idea that yawah was the good guy.

This guy has a real "Professor Indiana Jones" look to him.

In an hour you pulled nearly 2,000 viewers. I love your channel, but this is freaking amazing!!

@mikey-wl2jt

21 күн бұрын

"pulled" might not be the best word choice lmao

@thehellyousay

21 күн бұрын

@@mikey-wl2jt drew? attracted? seduced ...?

@mikey-wl2jt

21 күн бұрын

@@thehellyousay 🤣

@SonsOfLorgar

20 күн бұрын

​@@thehellyousay Enticed? Inspired? Entranced? Beguiled? Charmed? Lured? Endeared?

@EmmaThorneVideos

20 күн бұрын

I like "lured"

"Thou shall not steal"* * except to get cool content to include in the Bible. "

Is that Emma crushing on Dr Josh?? So entertaining and educational, many thanks.

I might be wrong, but what I see in these adaptations is an exploration of what monotheism really is. You can have a myth about the first humans where many gods participate in the complex personality of these humans, but you have to have perfect Adam and Eve becoming imperfect humans if the only important god created them. You can have the flood of a river in the Epic of Gilgamesh, but you need a universal flood if the only god made it. And then you have to play a shell game with Satan so that God is still God but a sort of bad god can produce mayhem without losing monotheism. Maybe these adaptations were not just to blend the myths with the proto-Jewish people, but to blend the myths with an omnipotent god.

@mellie4174

20 күн бұрын

Yes. You have effectively grasped the meaning. The ancient Israelites were creating an omnipotent god for themselves in order to distinguish and legitimize their culture and their land grabs of their kingdom from others in the area . Just like Islam did, and every other religion has done. God is a construct that we humans created as a tool for ourselves to use when convenient.

I always thought Genesis sounded like other mythology.

So many of my friends and neighbors need to watch these videos but will never watch them because they feel like it's oppression. 😢

@lourdeszurita9244

20 күн бұрын

And they'll never watch them because they're actually being opressed 🤦🏻‍♀️

@MrStacy1974

20 күн бұрын

@@lourdeszurita9244 so true .... they feel oppressed when they're told not to oppress others.

OMG OMG, I finally got my baphy plushie had given up ever getting one. It's awesome!!! 💕 Emma

Fantastic interview, and very eye opening. Thank you, Emma.

“There are so many problems of there being an actual flood …” (at 13:13) There was admittedly not a single flood that covered the entire earth, but large regions were flooded at the end of the Ice Age about 10,000 years ago. The sea level for the entire world rose about 500 feet. The Mediterranean Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the English Channel (south) were certainly flooded at that time.. Vast amounts of melted ice (water) ran south through Russia into what is now the Black Sea, and residents of that area experienced unprecedented flooding. The mythical Noah did not “live” very far from the Black Sea. Sumerians in southern Mesopotamia (near the location of Eden given in Genesis) had to retreat northward when the Persian Gulf flooded, and their descendants told myths about that particular flood to Israelites during their Babylonian captivity.

@julietfischer5056

20 күн бұрын

There were likely also other floods, not nearly so large but just as psychologically devastating to the inhabitants. These were people whose worlds were about the size of Rhode Island, and a flood of any size might as well be of the world. People explained things through their gods and spirits.

@ancientfiction5244

19 күн бұрын

The problem is that you have a gap of about 5,000 years between the melting of the ice and the original Sumerian flood story. It was most likely a local flood and the myth got carried to other locations and changed. --------------------------------------------------------- "Almost every culture has some form of a Great Flood story and this is often cited as proof that there must have been some cataclysmic deluge at some point. *This is not necessarily so, however, as it is just as possible that a popular flood story, repeated down through the ages, inspired storytellers in different regions.* Dalley comments: All these flood stories may be explained as deriving from the one Mesopotamian original, *used in traveler's tales for over two thousand years, along the great caravan routes of Western Asia: translated, embroidered, and adapted according to local tastes to give a myriad of divergent versions, a few of which have come down to us.* (7) Atrahasis, as noted, is not the oldest version of the Mesopotamian flood story and the earlier, oral version *almost certainly* influenced other culture's versions including the Egyptian and Hebrew." *"The Atrahasis Epic: The Great Flood & the Meaning of Suffering - World History Encyclopedia"*

@ancientfiction5244

19 күн бұрын

​@@julietfischer5056 Exactly.

@thehellyousay

18 күн бұрын

most of those flooding incidents would have involved ice dams and glacial lakes as the glaciers melted. the seas would have filled up fart more slowly, with the exception of the mediterranean sea, which filled rather suddenly, according to the geological record that we have.

@thehellyousay

18 күн бұрын

@@ancientfiction5244 you'd be amazed at how good people's memories can be when they have to keep everything in their heads.

Bow Ties and Fez's are cool, just ask the Doctor!

@rojh9351

21 күн бұрын

Bowen ties are cool.

Wow I really enjoyed this. I wasn’t expecting to find Dr. Josh so likable- informed, reasonable, having well thought through arguments, yes. But likable? That’s something different. I lost it when he said “Miss me with that shit!” So down to earth!

This is SUCH a great discussion and watch Emma! Dr Josh is so well spoken and had so many great analogies to aid his concepts and honestly, I was just blown away. Your questions were also very well thought out and the pacing was great. Would love love love to see you have him on again for similar topics

On no! may local area got flooded! this can only mean that the whole WORLD is flooded now! Then bam! Flood Myth. If people lived further away from water back then, you would have Fire Myths instead... Good chat though - it was interesting that the god switched to Evil in the earlier story lol.

@john_g_harris

21 күн бұрын

I don't think it started as a myth. People who have time to relax like listening to dramatic stories. Today you just switch on the TV. Back then you had to wait for someone to come by who was good at telling stories. And a story about the flood your grandparents suffered, or people a week's trek away suffered, would be welcomed. The story would be embellished with drama and tension, much of it guesswork or simply made up. After a few centuries it becomes classified as a myth; all the evidence and witnesses have gone.